About Leveled Reading

Our very own Jan Adkins wrote a response that resonated with iNK members and many librarians. Here it is for your reading pleasure:

Many thanks to dear Roxie for calling attention to the School Library Journal article on non-fiction. I found it . . . bloodless.

The moan of the dinosaur sounds from the swamp: Enough already.

I understand academic's desire for metrics, and librarians' desire for "standards" with which to measure their performance in bringing the just-right books to individual readers. But these external measurements of appropriate level can become autocratic, paralleling an increasingly authoritarian state. And in my heart I am certain that well-meaning metricians suppress the one vital factor we celebrate: style. I am also certain that the grid of just-right levels is a divisive fence that separates readers from books that would expand their understanding and challenge their syntactic muscles. These "common" feedlot fences offer books of encouraging simplicity to young readers but discourage them from many of the beguiling, genre-warping, uniquely voiced classic books that compelled many of us to become authors for young readers.

I've been reading Paddle to the Sea to my grandchildren. My 8 and 10 year-old grandsons are keenly waiting to see how Sherlock Holmes solves his "Study in Scarlet." We are ramping up to read Treasure Island. None of these are in their just-right boxes. The books they bring from their school libraries are marvels of appropriate clarity and never challenge their reading levels. I want to challenge them and sharpen their wits on tough intellectual fiber. Most of all, I want them to appreciate the humanness of the author's idiosyncratic voice, the style of storytelling that shapes words and phrases, metaphors and similes, and evades metrical boxes. The stories my boyos love most lately are "The Day the Dam Broke," "The Night the Ghost Got In," and "The Night the Bed Fell." James Thurber's droll phrasing and pace sends them into screeches of piratical schadenfreude. Yes, the metrics are all wrong for their separate reading levels.

My favorite nonfiction book in middle school was Man Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett, the reluctant tiger hunter and naturalist (who saved the Bengal tiger from extinction); it was far beyond my feedlot metric. I read it recently and was enchanted again by Corbett's gentle voice, the human controller, the hero of predated villagers. His voice, his style, are imperishable across lines of appropriate level, so that what was once merely exciting becomes profoundly nuanced to my adult ear. This is style; we can't measure it, we can't subdivide it, but as writers for young people we are strictly obliged to speak in our own, unfenced voices, to create books of reality with style that makes us – authors – unique witnesses to truth and stamps our own messy humanity on data. Filters of vocabulary and syntax are not neutral; they strain out the herbs in a recipe.

Excuse me, dear librarians. I love all of you and understand your desire to excel in encouraging children to read more and more and to gobble up the entire store of words, pictures, and wisdom in your stacks. You do marvelous, heroic work! But style is immeasurable, and pigeonholing books by "appropriate" levels will inevitably separate young and creative minds from their uniquely voiced nourishment. It's even possible that placing books in orderly boxes of access is a kind of slow, flameless burning.

Adkins

Our own school librarian, Karen Sterling, also weighed in:Love what Jan has to say, but please realize that great librarians are on exactly the same page. I put NOTHING in boxes and fight against leveling anything. And the American Library Association strongly supports that with their position statement on labeling books, stating unequivocally,

“It is the responsibility of school librarians to promote free access for students and not to aid in restricting their library materials”

Our dear read aloud advocate Jim Trelease oft reminds us that listening levels generally far exceed reading levels, and in my experience motivation and curiosity are the trump (always lower case) cards that win overall. I watched my youngest at the age of 6 stick to Dr. Axelrod’s Fish Encyclopedia so he could figure out how to make our community tank more viable. That was when he wasn’t tackling Harry Potter to keep up with his older siblings.

So this is one librarian (among many, many) who groups based on interest, and constantly points kids towards authors who demonstrate great voice and style. Because that’s what I want my students to model when they write for their readers